| 517 The United States are now reaping the benefits of the money paid into her treasury by us, for those lands which we have been so unjustly driven from; and those lands are still held from us by the state of Missouri; from whose hands we have received no remuneration and from whom we can obtain no redress. These are the wrongs of which your memorialist complains; wrongs which are in open violation to the laws of the whole civilized world. The United States are bound by the constitution to give to each state a republican form of government, and to suppress insurrection and rebel- [rebellion.] Are not these outrages here portrayed before you, insurrection and rebellion? Let your honorable body give the answer. Where is that nation to be found, so stupid to her welfare, so blind to her interest, as to suffer her laws thus to be trampled upon, without making a manly attempt to wipe the bloody stain from her escutcheon? If such a nation is now to be found in existence, she no longer deserves to have her name recorded among the nations of the earth, lest her unborn sons blush at the history of her crimes. Let me further invite the attention of your honorable body to the disgraceful fact, that the very characters who committed all the above outrages, were upheld and paid off by the executive of the state; and at the same time that they committed those outrages, they declared that they were the militia, and that they were called out to enforce the laws and see that they were kept. Under this cover, they put at defiance both the laws of God and man, and with worse than savage cruelty, committed theft, violence, rape and murder! Is it a republican form of government where such a blood-chilling tragedy as this, is acted in the face and eyes of all the authorities of this nation, and no redress be had? Let your honorable body give the answer. Is it a fact that in this boasted land of liberty, that a man's crimes, either pretended or real, are sufficient to subject his bosom companion to insult, his daughters to rape, himself and family to starvation and exile? Let it be answered by every virtuous man and woman in letters of gold, big with meaning, No! Yet all these outrages have been committed upon us without there being the first crime proved against us; and yet after repeated application to the authorities of Missouri, for redress, we can obtain none.-Then to say the least, had she ought not to be made to feel the chastening hand of a parent nation, and as far as in her power, be made to restore to us, not only our rights and property, but damages for all the injury she has done us. This is our claim, and a just one too.
To whom then shall your memorialist look for redress of wrongs committed upon himself and his brethren in tribulation? And where can he look for human assistance with more confidence than to the people of his native state? No where! Then to your honorable body I appeal in the name of an American citizen, and in behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, for redress of our wrongs; and through you to the general government.-To you he has told his wrongs and that of his brethren, and in confidence he looks to the patriots of Massachusetts, the state of his nativity, and the land of the sepulchres [sepulchers] of his ancestors. On yonder Green Mountain, in the town of Plainfield, lies the ashes of my father, who labored and fought to gain the liberties you now enjoy; he filled a place in the ranks of the army at the critical hour of the taking of Burgoyne; and shall his spirit be wounded at beholding the sons of Columbia in exile, and the banner of liberty stamped in the dust, and nothing done by the patriots of Massachusetts in behalf of suffering innocence? Tell it not in the streets of the valley, publish it not in the highways of the Green Mountains, lest the wicked hear the sound thereof; lest the daughters of Missouri laugh at your weakness. Yea, your memorialist tells you, that he will tell his wrongs and that of his brethren in Massachusetts, I will publish them in the streets of the valley, until the sound thereof reaches to her mountains top; that her statesmen may plead the cause of suffering innocence in the legislative halls of our nation; her patriotic sons, stimulated by her fair daughters, raise their voices and cease not until the cause of innocence shall be heard, and our most sacred rights restored. As one of the native sons of Massachusetts, I ask your honorable body, in the name of all the constitutional rights of man, to instruct the whole delegation of Massachusetts, in congress, to use all lawful and constitutional means to obtain for us a redress of all our wrongs and losses. Believing as your memorialist does, that our case comes within the power of the general government, and that they are bound, not only by every principle of justice, but also by law, to see that justice is meted out to every son and daughter of our national republic. Weak indeed must have been the capacity of statesmen, if they framed and accepted a constitution that made no provision for self defence [defense] Is it a fact that our laws have become so weak, our statesmen so stupid to the existence of our nation, that American citizens can be driven from lands and enjoyments guaranteed to them by the government and she has no power to redress their wrong?
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